Collab | 5 Benefits of Brewing Your Own Alcoholic Beverages

There are a whole bunch of different hobbies that you could get involved in, from crocheting to stamp collecting, and from rock climbing to mountain biking and parkour.

One hobby for those with a more food-oriented perspective, however, could be to start brewing your own alcohol.

Brewing is a truly ancient tradition, and it stretches back far into the misty days of prehistory. People have been brewing alcoholic beverages from mead and ale to beer and cider, probably for a longer span of time than the practice of baking bread has been around.

Getting started with brewing takes a bit of work, but it’s not an overly complicated process at the outset. For starters, you only really need a few items of equipment, and containers suitable for storing the liquid as it ferments. Eventanks for storing molassescould hypothetically be repurposed for your brewing needs.

Here are a few of the benefits of brewing your own alcoholic beverages

It could be used as a motivation for more mindful drinking (rather than getting toasted every evening)

Alright, so this might not instantly seem like the most obvious point, it is, in fact, possible that getting started with brewing your own alcohol could serve as a motivating factor for more mindful drinking, and maybe also more responsible drinking.

Think about it like this; you are putting in the effort to prepare your own drinks from scratch, and have to commit to putting in a certain amount of time and effort to getting your “product” up to the desired standard. When it’s ready, you are then inclined to treat it like something special, and — especially if you’re already interested in cutting down how much you drink — might feel better about pacing yourself rather than binge-downing everything you’ve made.

This could then lead to a more mindful approach to drinking, overall.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t a given. It’s certainly possible that you could just irresponsibly drink everything you brewed.

The key, though, is that brewing will increaseyour mindfulnessabout drinking. And, combined with the right mindset, this can be a useful step in adopting a more responsible approach to drinking overall.

It’s an in-depth hobby that can prove engaging and rewarding

Brewing starts off as something that’s relatively simple to do, but it quickly gets more complicated as you think of different strategies to improve quality, different ways of flavouring your drinks, and so on.

Before long after embarking on your brewing adventure, you can find yourself really immersed in what is a very in-depth and engaging hobby, that many people from around the world participate in and derive plenty of joy from.

You could work on specialised brews for special occasions, you could design your own bottle labels and trade your products with friends or family, or at local amateur brewing conventions.

You could get deeply involved in the entire subculture surrounding brewing, and meet many other people who are passionate about the subject.

In short, getting involved in brewing can be a great entry point to an engaging hobby that can fill your evenings and weekends with entertainment and meaningful pastimes.

It’s a skill you can share with friends, that has a certain special, unique touch

We live in an age of consumerism, where very few people actually make things on their own. One of the implications of this, is that the gifts we buy for our friends and relatives are usually the kinds of things that came off a production line somewhere.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this in and of itself. Everyone appreciates getting abookor a kindle. But there’s still a certain personal touch that comes with gifts you created yourself, that’s often a lot more memorable and meaningful.

Brewing is, ultimately, a skill that you can share with your friends, and that has a certain, special, unique touch. Inviting your friends to hang out at your place and have some drinks is one thing. Inviting them over to sample your new brew is something else altogether.

It could be the basis for starting a small-scale side-hustle

The regulations for selling alcohol in your area might be quite stringent and complex, so this isn’t necessarily a point that applies to everyone, but it’s worth keeping in mind that, circumstances allowing, brewing your own alcohol could well be the basis of a small-scale side-hustle which could generate a reasonable amount of additional revenue for you to enjoy.

Alcohol is universally popular in and of itself, but we also live in an age of craft-beer and micro-brewery appreciation these days, which is a great backdrop for any entrepreneurially-minded brewer to begin producing and selling their own beverages.

As an amateur brewer, you have a more or less unlimited amount of creative freedom in how you produce your drinks. You could mix different blends of fruit and flavouring to create unique tastes, you could experiment with more technical parts of the process, and you could get really creative with your bottle and label design. There’s a lot of scope for creativity and salesmanship.

It helps to reconnect you with what you eat and drink

It’s a weird fact that not very long ago, historically speaking; most people were very close to the source of their food. Sure, maybe they didn’t mill and bake their own bread, but it’s likely they knew the local miller and baker, not to mention the farmer who supplied their milk and meat, and brewer who made their beer.

In the blink of an eye, historically speaking, we’re all now largely unconscious consumers who eat what we want, when we want, and take the complex process of food production for granted.

One consequence of this is that it tends to make us less grateful for what we do have, and robs some of the pleasure from eating and drinking.Brewing — especially when combined with home cooking and maybe a degree of homesteading —reconnects youwith what you eat and drink and makes life a bit more interesting again.